


Truth or Dare

by Hinn_Raven



Series: Donut Siblings [9]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Siblings, Family Drama, Gen, Healing, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 05:18:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9642335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinn_Raven/pseuds/Hinn_Raven
Summary: Now that the truth is out, Wash and Donut have to tell their sisters the story of Project Freelancer, the Reds and Blues, and everything in between.[Directly follows "We All Fall Down"]





	

**Author's Note:**

> It's been one year since I uploaded Two Truths and a Lie. In many ways, it was a beginning. 
> 
> Today, I finish the story I set out to tell, even if I didn't know it at the time. 
> 
> This series is important to me in so many ways I can't even describe. I've never had a story seize me so thoroughly, and present itself in so many variations. 
> 
> If you're fans of the multiverse of this, well, don't worry, that's still going to keep going, but the storyline of the main universe here is now done. (Might have some drabbles set in the timeline though, who knows how these things go.)
> 
> So I'd like to spend a moment thanking some wonderful people who've made this all possible. 
> 
> Crim, who's idea it was that Wash and Donut be brothers in the first place. 
> 
> goodluckdetective and renaroo, who've encouraged me every step of the way. From proofreading to idea bouncing to drawing my girls to just being the absolute best friends a girl could ask for. 
> 
> sroloc_elbisivni, my little fandom sibling, whose enthusiasm fueled this universe and who I absolutely blame for all of this. 
> 
> And then to every single one of you who've commented here or on Tumblr, to everyone who's talked to me about this universe or my characters or my story. I never dreamed this was possible, but here we are. 
> 
> Thank you. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy.

**This is true:**

Agent Washington shoots Franklin Delano Donut. The bullet goes right through him. A clean shot. He begins to bleed profusely, and his armor goes into lockdown to save his life. Doc lies to Agent Washington to save him.

Donut lives.

**This is true:**

Donut hasn’t had a brother in a long, long time. Not a brother by birth anyways. He’s got Grif and Simmons and Tucker and Caboose and the others but it’s different. That’s family that’s found. Just as important, but still.

Donut’s been mourning David for a long, long time when his brother sits by him in the cafeteria and apologizes.

**This is the lie:**

Donut doesn’t make it off the Staff of Charon. Their family goes to the funeral.

Their mother sits next to Wash, and when she asks him who he is, he tells them he was Donut’s superior officer.

* * *

Donut circles back to the big house late.

Mitch is waiting for him, it seems. There’s a glass of wine poured out for him, waiting on the table. Mitch doesn’t like wine much. It’s a peace offering.

He ignores it.

“It’s not fair!” He tells her.

“Frank,” Mitch says, her face twisting up in that way that means she thinks he’s being _stupid_. He hates that face.

“No!” He snaps. “You _listen to me,_ Michelle!”

She stops.

“You don’t get to… you don’t get to do this and say it’s because of _me_ ,” he snaps. “We… it’s not his fault!”

“He seems to think it was,” Mitch says.

“It _wasn’t_ ,” Donut protests. It’s oversimplifying things, he knows. And it’s not, strictly speaking, true. Wash knew what he was doing, even if he didn’t know who Donut was. He just hadn’t cared.

But Mitch doesn’t _know_ about Freelancer. She doesn’t know about Epsilon or Price or any of the other things that the Reds and Blues have seen. She doesn’t know about the Meta, or Hargrove, or Felix and Locus and…

It’s different. She wasn’t there, for the war. She doesn’t get to judge.

“I forgave him,” Donut tells her, because it’s true. He’d forgiven Wash long before he’d known the face behind the helmet. He’d forgiven him when he was still just a Freelancer hardass. “You don’t get to make him feel like this because of me.”

Mitch looks at him, and sets down her glass. She’s barely touched it.

“Alright,” she says. “I’ll talk to him.”

Donut watches her walk away, towards Tucker and Wash’s house, and curls his fingers around the scar on his abdomen.

It’ll all be fine.

He’s sure of it.

* * *

**This is true:**

Agent Washington finds out that Donut is his brother accidentally. His memory is blurred by Epsilon and the past, and the firm knowledge that he never had a brother.

Until he did.

**This is true:**

When Wash has been home three weeks, Jackie wears her hair up in a ponytail, but lets part of it hang down. “Do you think I’d look good with an undercut?” She laughs.

Wash calls her “Connie” that day. When he realizes it, he goes very quiet, and doesn’t talk to Jackie for the rest of the day.

Jackie is careful to never wear her hair like that again.

**This is the lie:**

Jackie leaves the house the night she finds out her older brother shot her younger one, and she says that she’d be back the next day.

* * *

“Caboose!” Jackie blinks, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

Caboose beams at her, and reaches down and picks her up in a hug. “Jackie! Freckles said that you were sad and that is why you weren’t coming to the farm anymore! So I came to try to make you not sad!”

Jackie laughs, letting her feet dangle in the air for a while. She can’t really hug back—her arms are pinned pretty firmly to her sides by the hug she’s trapped in, but she doesn’t mind.

“Thank you Caboose,” she says. “I do feel better.”

Caboose almost drops her, then remembers, and carefully sets her down. “So are you coming back?” Caboose asks, and Jackie flinches internally.

“I’m—I’m not sure, Caboose.”

Caboose’s face falls. “Why not?” He asks, plaintively.

Jackie takes Caboose’s hand and carefully guides him inside. He follows, letting her lead him into the apartment. Her roommates are at work, so it’s just her today. She hopes Caboose doesn’t notice the way that the photographs are spread everywhere. It’s clear how much she’s going over it, at least to her. And Caboose is very perceptive, in his own way.

Jackie gives Caboose a glass of juice and some cookies that Mitch had sent her home with a while ago. They’re old, but Caboose doesn’t care, carefully eating, staring at her with those big brown eyes of his the whole time. Jackie has to stop herself from taking off her glasses to avoid them.

“I’m angry, Caboose,” she says. “I’m mad at Wash. Because he broke a promise.”

Caboose stares at her, eyes wide. “Really?”

“Yes,” Jackie says.

Caboose’s face suddenly takes on that odd, pensive expression that he gets when he makes a connection. “He promised not to hurt Donut?” He still says the name very slowly, as if unsure if he’s saying it right. Jackie nods, encouraging him. The therapy and the medications are clearly doing Caboose a world of good.

“He promised he’d look after us,” Jackie says, sitting down next to Caboose on the couch. “He always said it was his job.”

Caboose frowns. “But he didn’t know, so is that really breaking the promise? Freckles says you can’t break a promise if you don’t understand what you promised.” He says, perfectly practical and reasonable.  

Jackie’s heart squeezes. “Maybe not,” she says. “But he still did a bad thing, Caboose. It isn’t nice to hurt people.”

Caboose nods, then goes back to his cookie. “Wash is sad,” Caboose says. “All the time now.”

Jackie swallows. “I know.”

Caboose frowns at her. “That’s not very nice,” he says, reproachfully.

Jackie can’t look at him, hands clasped firmly in her lap. “I know,” she says again.

He picks up one of the pictures on the table. It’s one of them from just a few weeks ago. Wash and Mitch with their greying hair, Mitch leaning against Martha’s shoulder. Wash laughs at something Donut’s saying, one of Donut’s arms thrown around Wash’s shoulder, the other one over Jackie’s. Jackie’s glasses are crooked and she’s smiling.

“I’ll think about it, Caboose,” she says, putting her small hand over Caboose’s large one. “I promise.”

He smiles at her, and Jackie knows she’ll be driving him back to the farm at the end of the day.

* * *

**This is true:**

Agent Washington nearly looses Donut again on the Staff of Charon. It’s close. Too close.

But they make it. They all do, except Church.

And at the end of it, after conferences and rebuilding and Kimball’s election and…

Donut takes his hand and drags Wash home.

**This is true:**

The night Carolina moves in with Martha, they have a few too many drinks, and Carolina begins to laugh.

“It’s my fault he’s…” she tells Martha, staring down at the brown bottle in her hands. “I didn’t… I should’ve… I think he hates me, sometimes.”

“He doesn’t,” Martha says. “You’re his sister.”

“I had a brother,” Carolina says abruptly. “He… he hurt Wash bad. I don’t think… he’s gone now, and I can’t talk to him about it, because Wash was _right_.”

Martha doesn’t know what to say. She gives Carolina a glass of water and takes away the bottle.

**This is the lie:**

Martha goes right home. She doesn’t go to a field, not far from the farm, and climb an apple tree, and cry, sitting in the branches, trying to understand how they got here.

* * *

Martha doesn’t stay away long.

She has a shop in town, yes, but it’s more of an office, a place to pick up orders.

Her real shop is at the farm, in the shed where Grif won’t go near because of the bat hutch Mitch installed years ago.

In the morning, Carolina passes her a glass of water and an aspirin.

“You were out late,” she says.

“Yeah,” Martha says.

Carolina places a hand on her shoulder. “He’s… I don’t think he’s ever forgiven himself. My… Church was there when he found out. He had to call me.”

“Church,” Martha repeats. “Your brother.”

Carolina flinches. “Yes.”

“Wash is your brother too,” she says.

Carolina’s expression is shuttered, but Martha knows the answer.

“You said Church hurt Wash,” she says. “Did you… _could_ you forgive that?”

Carolina reaches up, touching her hair. It’s getting long, almost brushing her shoulders now.

“I… it was difficult,” Carolina says. “I didn’t think about it that way for a long time. It was… tricky. Complicated. We were at war, and I was… driven.”

Martha tilts her head, listening, not saying anything.

“When I did,” Carolina swallows. “I realized that Wash… it was his place. Not mine. It was up to him.”

Martha turns away. “Frank forgave him,” she says, slowly, as if testing out the words in her mouth. They taste sour. 

“He did,” Carolina agrees. “I wasn’t there for that. When Wash shot him. It was before my time.”

It’s an apology, maybe, or something else that Martha doesn’t have words for.

She nods in acknowledgement. In the doorway, she hesitates. “I’m sorry about Church.”

Carolina laughs, short and bitter. “Me too,” she says.

Martha goes to her shop. Lopez is waiting there for her. He’s got a cup of coffee in one hand, a cup of oil for himself in the other. She takes the one he offers to her, sniffing it carefully before drinking. Lopez likes her, but he’s not above playing a joke.

“You knew,” she says, not bothering with Spanish for once.

“ _Si_.”

Martha gets the handsaw and starts cutting up boards into smaller pieces. She’s not sure what project she’s even working on. 

“I don’t hate him,” she says. She’s not sure who she’s talking to—Lopez, the bats, herself. “I don’t. I don’t.”

Lopez says nothing, just moves the lumber piles.

“He’s my brother,” she says. “I love him. I do. Idiot. Stupid, idiot, stupid…”

She’s not sure if she’s referring to Wash or herself.

* * *

**This is true:**

Tucker is the first to follow Wash home. The others come soon after.

The farm starts to burst to the seams, full of light and laughter.

Felix comes to the farm, but even that can’t shatter what they’ve built. A home. For all of them.

The family continues to grow, and sometimes, none of them can believe that this is real.

**This is true:**

On their third night of marriage, the topic changes to Andi’s service. Andi doesn’t like talking about it. But she’s willing to tonight and Mitch listens, hanging on to every word.

“I had a squadmate,” Andi says. “He… he got really messed up. And they… they should’ve sent him home, but they didn’t. And I… I maybe could’ve done something, but I didn’t.”

“Not your fault, Andi,” Mitch says, reaching out to take her hand.

“He’s dead now,” Andi says. “They all are. I’m the only one left.”

She turns her face towards the sky she can’t fly in anymore, and gazes at the stars.

**This is the lie:**

Mitch waits until morning, and when she wakes up there’s a note on her counter and Wash is gone.

They rip themselves apart in his absence, fighting over things like blame and the past, and Mitch throws up in the bathroom sink, worrying that she’s lost him again.

They go hunting for him, and don’t find him.

Wash nearly shoots Martha in a clearing, startled out of a waking dream.

* * *

Mitch goes to Wash’s house that night.

The one he built with Tucker. It had taken them ages to build, even with all the others helping and Martha supervising. It had been loud and fun and wonderful; paint had gotten everywhere and everyone had splinters.

Charlie and Tucker are home, sleeping peacefully.

Mitch can’t sleep. She makes herself coffee as quietly as she can and sits on their couch, listening to the night sounds of the little village her new family has built. She can hear Sarge’s snores from here. Lauren’s light is on—she’s up late reading under the covers again.

There’s no light on in Donut’s little house.

Mitch lets her coffee go cold.

She hears Wash begin to toss and turn and cry out, and she starts the coffee again, knowing he’ll want it.

She’s fine until she hears him yell. “ _Donut_!”

She closes her eyes, and sits down hard on the couch. She knows what he’s having nightmares about, and she doesn’t like it, not one bit.

“Mitch,” he croaks. He looks awful—rings around his eyes. He looks like he does in those early pictures Tucker has shown her, of what he was like before Chorus, before coming home.

Her brother came home broken, but god, these Reds and Blues had put him back together as best they could, and she’ll never be able to thank them enough for it, for taking that haunted look away, to make it a rarity instead of an everyday occurrence.

“You were screaming Frank’s name,” Mitch looks away.

“I was?”

Mitch nods. “Martha’s still mad,” she says—the phone call echoes in her ear. Martha’s voice slurred with alcohol. Carolina’s messaged her, promising that she’d make sure nothing bad happened. “But she’s calmed down.” She finally looks up at Wash again. “You’re not hurt, right?” Her eyes linger on the bruise Martha left.

“I’ve had worse,” Wash says.

“Andi’s told me about your _worse_ , David,” Mitch says, doing her best to stop her voice from shaking. Shot in the back and left for dead, spaceship crashes, rogue AI…

Wash flinches. “How much—”

“Bits and pieces,” Mitch says. “Some she told me before she knew you were my brother. Others she told me to explain a few things.” The nightmares. The scars. The way he called her “North”, the day she’d worn purple.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Wash asks.

“I wanted you to tell me yourself,” Mitch says, the old, familiar anger bubbling up in her. She keeps it down as best she can—she can’t lose her temper, she can’t yell, she came here to make peace. “I wanted you to _trust us_.”

Wash looks away. “Mitch—the things I’ve done—’

“Are bad,” Mitch says. “I get it. And… it’s not okay. What you did. But Frank’s forgiven you.”

“He forgives too easily,” Wash says tightly.

“He always did,” Mitch replies. “Remember when he made cookies for that kid you shoved into a mirror? Even though he’d kicked Frank’s ribs so hard they were purple? That’s who he is.”

“Didn’t Martha put stuff in the cookies?” Wash seems dazed when he tries to drudge up the old memory

“Probably,” Mitch says, mouth twitching at the memory. “She holds grudges the best of any of us. Except you of course.”

Wash flinches. Mitch wonders, once again, what she’s said wrong. There’s too much she doesn’t know, too much she can’t fix.

“Look. It’s not okay. But Donut yelled at me for a straight hour about how we didn’t have the right to hold grudges for him. Not with you.”

Mitch hugs him. Because this, this she knows. She knows her brother. She knows he needs this. This reassurance.

“Martha won’t stay mad forever,” she promises, even as he locks down in her grasp, not hugging back, but not pulling away. “And Jackie’s already calling every therapist she knows. She… she thinks it might be good if we all talk to someone. As a family.” Jackie’s messages have been short and brief, all hypotheticals instead of feelings. She thinks Jackie’s struggling processing. She stops hugging him, but leaves her hands on his arms. “But I think we need to know the _whole_ story David. No more vague answers. No more avoiding it.”

She meets his gaze evenly.

“You need to tell us about what happened at Project Freelancer.”

* * *

**This is true:**

Dexter Grif is the one to let it slip, in the end. It’s thoughtless, careless, a response to a question about scars.

Martha hits Wash in the face, and as he crumples to the ground, he knows he deserved it.

**This is true:**

That night, Wash climbs into bed with Tucker, mentally preparing a list of everything he should pack for when he leaves. He won’t intrude here, where he’s unwanted. He won’t force that upon his sisters, his family.

**This is the lie:**

Agent Washington doesn’t come home, after the war.

He buries his brother, and sends off his family, watching them until their ship vanishes into the distance.

He’s lost, after that. Listless.

Carolina’s the one who pulls him out of it.

“Let’s go,” she says. She’s lost a brother too.

At least he still has her, he thinks, following her, wherever it is she intends to go.

* * *

It takes them a few days.

Martha pulls him aside on day four, and tells him she doesn’t hate him.

Jackie is the last holdout, finally showing up with Caboose and a thin smile. Wash wonders if he should be surprised, but he knows his sisters. Jackie will have thought every inch of this through before letting herself return to the scene. If she’s hear, she’s ready.

“Sibling night,” Mitch declares at dinner, and she sends the kids to Grif and Simmons’ place for the night, while Andi takes Caboose and goes to play cards with Tucker at their place. Carolina goes home without Martha.

It’s just the five of them, sitting around the table.

Mitch comes out of the kitchen with a bottle of whiskey.

“We’re going to need it,” she says.

Wash wonders if this is a good idea. Martha shoves a glass at him. 

“Start from the beginning,” Jackie says. At least she’s not taking notes.

Donut kicks Wash lightly, and smiles.

Wash takes a deep breath, and begins to talk. It’s slow going at first, with Jackie interrupting to demand answers about the Counselor, and Mitch nodding whenever she recognizes something from Niner’s stories. Donut occasionally has his own interjections—things he learned over the years, stories from Church or Carolina or even Tex.

Martha is perfectly silent, staring into her glass.

When he gets to Epsilon, Martha knocks over her glass. “ _What?_ ” She yells.

He stares at her.

“ _That’s_ … oh my god,” she’s on her feet, pale. “That’s what she meant?”

“Who meant?”

“ _Carolina_!” She yells. “She… _fuck_!” She sits down again and buries her face in her hands.

Mitch doesn’t look surprised. Jackie’s been silent since he started explaining about Alpha.

Donut reaches over and squeezes his hand.

Donut takes over from that point, starting to tell about Blood Gulch. There are gaps, but it gives Wash a break, lets him sort out his thoughts.

The mood lightens as Donut tells his part of the story. The alcohol is helping, softening Jackie’s expressions and loosening Martha’s muscles enough that she leans up against Wash. It’s the first time all week that Wash has _believed_ her that she doesn’t hate him, and he pets her hair absently as Donut sings excerpts from the musical he wrote about time travel.

But Mitch’s eyes keep flickering back to him, and he knows what she’s thinking. She knows they’re heading towards a collision of the worlds of Freelancer and Blood Gulch. She knows this won’t be a happy ending.

Eventually, Donut’s story leaves Blood Gulch, and Wash is forced to start speaking again. He mentions Command, and Mitch pours herself another drink, her hands shaking slightly. He wonders how much of this Mitch has heard from another perspective.

He talks about South. About the Meta. About finding Caboose, then Church, then the Reds, but not Donut.

He talks about going into the building with Church, about luring the Meta into the depths of Freelancers, and Jackie’s eyes are bright.

She knows what he isn’t saying, he realizes.

She knows he wasn’t planning on coming out of there alive.

Underneath the table, he feels her ankle hook with his.

Then comes prison, and none of them touch their drinks. Making a deal with the devil—or Hargrove, but really, what’s the difference?

Going to Valhalla, letting the Meta chase them around.

Donut’s grip on his hand could shatter bones as Wash finally reaches the part they’ve all known they were heading towards.

“I shot Lopez first,” Wash says, not able to meet anyone’s eyes. “Then… then I shot Donut.”

_Blood staining the pink armor, the way he crumples forward. “Simmons? I think he…”_

_And Wash doesn’t care, doesn’t feel a goddamn thing._

Martha throws a glass—empty, into the living room, scowling. It shatters on the floor, and Wahs knows they’ll have to clean it up before they forget and someone treads on broken glass. But she says nothing.

“Keep going,” Jackie whispers, her voice hoarse.

Mitch tilts her chair backwards, and stares at the ceiling.

The story spins out. Kidnapping Doc, through the desert, to Sidewinder, to lying in the snow, dying, and waking up in different colored armor and a second chance.

“Idiots,” Martha laughs. “God, that was _stupid_.”

“It was,” Wash agrees, ducking his head. The old, familiar shame rises up in him, the knowledge that he hadn’t deserved it, but that it had been offered anyways, because that’s who they _were_.

“Thank fuck they did, though,” Martha says. Then she gets up and hugs him, too tight, but he can feel her shaking, and says nothing.

“That’s why Andi thought you were dead,” Mitch says. “You faked it.”

“Yes.”

Mitch’s gaze is assessing.

Martha’s forgiven him, he feels it. Jackie… Wash isn’t sure.

But Mitch hasn’t yet.

Wash is almost glad, because he doesn’t deserve it.

“Keep going,” she encourages.

Donut takes over again, talking about Doc coming back for him, of them building their own farm. Mitch practically melts as he describes it, smiling so wide Wash can almost pretend that this is normal, that the secret never spilled out to ruin everything.

Carolina is next. Martha listens intently, nodding whenever things sound familiar. Donut starts talking as their paths intersect again. Wash watches his sisters, looking to see how they’re taking it.

When Donut begins to enthusiastically describe the fight against the Tex clones, Jackie cracks.

“Who needs therapy when you’ve got them, huh?” She asks, laughing. Tears are pouring down her face. “You… _god_. They saved you.” She reaches over and grabs his hand. “They saved you,” she whispers again, taking off her glasses to wipe her eyes.

Donut grins at her.

Chorus. They know the most about Chorus, from the news, from Kimball, from Carolina, from the Reds and Blues.

“When did you realize?” Mitch asks.

Wash stares at his glass. It’s empty. The bottle is significantly lower than it had been at the beginning of the night.

“I was hitting a punching bag,” Wash says. “And Donut told me…”

“You really should wrap those before you do that,” Donut remembers, grinning. “Protection is very important!”

Their sisters groan in unison.

“And then I told Wash I had four siblings!” Donut grins.

“And then he told me he was from Iowa,” Wash nods. “And he talked about our home town and… and it sounded familiar. But I didn’t believe it. Because…”

“You had four sisters,” Mitch whispers. “Not a brother.”

“Right. I didn’t… I didn’t know for sure. Not until Epsilon told me.”

“And then Epsilon called Carolina,” Martha says. Wash starts. “You freaked out.”

“I’d… I’d _shot him_ ,” Wash mutters.

Mitch stares at him.

“You,” she says slowly, are an _idiot_ , David Fillmore.”

Then she strides across the room and hugs him, just like she had when he’d come home for the first time.

“You realize,” Jackie says. “How much fucking angst you could have spared us all if you two had just come clean _ages_ ago?”

Wash begins to laugh. He can’t help it. His younger sister is holding him in the air, he’s had too much to drink, and there’s a crashing sense of _relief_ that fills him to his very core.

He’s been afraid of this for so long. Everything, laid bare, out in the open, exposed and vulnerable.  

But here he is, and his siblings are surrounding him, laughing too, laughing from exhaustion and relief and who knows what else, but Wash lets himself fall to the ground.

There’s been a knot in his chest that Wash has never quite learned to unpick for as long as he could remember.

But today, Wash thinks he feels it loosening slightly.

* * *

 

**This is true:**

There will be many more discussions like this one to come.

**This is also true:**

Wash might never completely forgive himself for shooting his little brother, but he comes close enough. And his siblings do.

**This is a lie:**

The end

**Author's Note:**

> The universes mentioned in the lies sections are from Angst War entries in this universe; Donut dies in [Lost and Found](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6119524), while Wash runs away and has his encounter in the woods with Martha in [Ashes, Ashes.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6587488)"
> 
> Come chill with me on [Tumblr](http://secretlystephaniebrown.tumblr.com/) for further shenanigans.


End file.
